XPS 8940, Intel WiFi 7 adapter

It will work.  here is a reference article https://dongknows.com/wi-fi-7-upgrade-on-a-windows-computer/

it has same E key as stock wifi card of 8940 Genuine ND6M1 Dell Intel Killer 1650i Wireless WiFi Bluetooth Card Ax201ngw Oem.

Will this work in my XPS 8940?

WiFi 7 Wireless Card Intel BE200 NGW, Bluetooth 5.4, 5800Mbps M.2/NGFF Network Support Windows 10/11 (64bit), Linux, Not support AMD. Ideal for WiFi7/WiFi6E/WiFi6/WiFi5 Router

And the ANSWER is YES and NO!!!

I got a Deco TP-Link BE65 WiFi 7 router... and that same M.2 adapter. Took out of the 8940 the Intel AX1650i M.2 adapter. Easy replacement.

However, Intel's Driver and Support Assistant DID NOT see the adapter. But I was getting the 6Ghz SSID 1.14Ghz from my ISP's 1Gbp service down.

Worse, if I connected to the MLO network, only a 5Ghz band was reported.

However, another user who is on the MS InSider Canary build WITH the MS's 'future release' WiFi 7 OS does see correct MLO data in setting.

This is what MS W11 Home (latest version at this time without WiFi 7 support) sees now on the MLO SSID:

Note: I complained on Intel's forum about it not being seen. Other did too, and was told IF it was NOT installed by your PC vendor, there is NO support for the Adapter. You can check that out here, https://community.intel.com/t5/Wireless/New-BE200-Wifi-7-M-2-card-slow-to-connect-to-the-router-on-boot/m-p/1580181#M52950 for more.

@dalewebb 

I would go ahead with it, once MS releases the full Wifi7 support you can use it, but also before. Even if you do not have a Wifi 7 router.

Amazon has another Intel M.2 Wifi 7 adapter, that is Killer type... that might be good as well to get.

It works fine with Wifi 6.

I finally was able to reload a XPS8940 with a fresh Win11 23H2 installation.

Other than that blue screen on reboot during the WinUpdate installs, seems to be running nice.

One thing I did notice is the Intel AX1650i WiFi throughput dropped quite a bit from the mid 20MB/sec to around 7MB/sec.

I will have to check the archives here to see what might be causing that.

The nVidia 3060Ti power setting was set to 'normal' but I did change it to 'full performance' just to make sure I don't give power saving a chance to cause instability (it was nVidia recommended before the reload).

This 8940 has been stable since it was purchased.

@Element115s4  - Check to see if Killer (and xTend, if any) services have their Startup type set to Enabled in Start>Run>services.msc.  That's a common cause for slow network speeds. 

Set them all to Disabled, reboot, and check speeds again...

@RoHe​ 

Ron, have to be careful on this. When I installed the BE200 taking out the AX1650i, I knew that the Killer S/W was not needed, BUT some IS still needed. The Ethernet Adapter is still Killer.

I took out ALL Killer S/W and I lost the use of the Ethernet adapter (on my PC I do use the Ethernet connection at times).

Even the Performance Suite can't be removed, from its description, " Intel® Killer™ Performance Suite package installs the Windows® 10 and Windows 11* Wi-Fi, Ethernet drivers and Killer Networking Software for"

Thanks guys, the user isn't really noticing the bandwidth reduction but it does bother me so I will get to the bottom of it.

This user does not use wired so if I were to remove the Killer software, no harm no foul.

I will say I didn't see that big K in the system tray before the reload so wonder now what the default setup was.

@ispalten - I disabled all Killer (and xTend) services in services.msc (Win 10) on my XPS 8930 and the Killer Gigabit E2400 Ethernet controller still works perfectly fine. I only use Ethernet with this PC. And every time Windows Update pushes a Killer update (disguised as an Intel update), Ethernet upload speed drops to a crawl...

@Element115s4 - If the user isn't "...noticing bandwidth reduction...", what did you mean by "...dropped quite a bit from the mid 20MB/sec to around 7MB/sec7MB/sec..."?

@RoHe​ 

@ispalten - I disabled all Killer (and xTend) services in services.msc (Win 10) on my XPS 8930 and the Killer Gigabit E2400 Ethernet controller still works perfectly fine. I only use Ethernet with this PC. And every time Windows Update pushes a Killer update (disguised as an Intel update), Ethernet upload speed drops to a crawl...

Well, that wasn't the case on my 8940. I removed the Intel AX1650i and figured I didn't need any Killer/Xtend s/w either. Put in the WiFi 7 adapter, connected to a 6Ghz SSID and reached over 1Gbps down. This was after I removed Killer stuff... and then switched over to the Ethernet cable to see what it did... It did NOTHING... could not connect. Device Manager showed a problem with the device. So I re-installed the Performance suite... and poof, the Ethernet port works. The Killer Perf. app, nope, reported the Service was not running.

Wonder why it works for you? Difference between the 8930 and 8940?

Makes me thing about this? I just ran the Intel DSA, and it had  the Performance Suite was ready for install, so I did it. Still wouldn't run, so I deleted it?

OK, you make me do it... I just tested again.

Yes, the Ethernet works? I guarantee you it didn't before?

Speeds are similar of the ISP's 1Gbps down, wired 880Mbps, wireless 883Mbps.

When I did enable the Ethernet adapter though (I have Autorun Organizer active and it alerts me to Startup changes) a slew of popups appear for different Killer or xTend items appeared. Maybe that is why it worked?

Anyway, it seems I was wrong, you can remove Killer S/W completely and Ethernet does work.

@RoHe​ 

Many PC users aren't even utilizing anything near 7MB/sec so this is why they might not notice the drop in bandwidth performance.

A user transferring files would probably notice.

I will remove the Killer software and see what happens.

@ispalten  - You're forgiven... Maybe the Killer driver or one of the essential Windows networking services wasn't loading when Ethernet didn't work after disabling the Killer services...??  At least Ethernet works properly without Killer services running now.

@Element115s4  - Are you actually talking about transfer speeds to/from a USB device, or network connection speeds via Ethernet or WiFi?

@RoHe​ 

Of course, I am talking about WiFi speeds on the network either local LAN or internet.

I was mentioning the speed difference dealing with a 10Gb LAN connection SMB source (25MB/sec before the 8940 reload and 7MB/sec after).

Did you disable all Killer services? 

@Element115s4​ 

You can get completely different speeds between Internet and local devices on the LAN. A lot of different overheads involved.

For the Lan you need a server on a device, hard to determine just measuring time to move a large file. Suggest using a utility for the LAN testing, see this web page, https://www.smallnetbuilder.com/basics/lanwan-basics/three-more-ways-to-measure-network-speed/ and I've used LANBENCH myself between 2 PC's.

I've got a USB drive on my Router shared via SMB, and it is a LOT slower than that same drive put on another PC. I also found the timing to vary a lot on the router, and I never was able to determine why, even made sure I did the test when I was the only router client.